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Fund started for children of plane crash victims A fund has been set up to help the four young children of Dean "Dino" Ray Beckett Jr. and Kara Elaine Jeffries-Beckett, the Ashland residents who died with Beckett Jr.'s father in a plane crash Wednesday. Contributions to the "Beckett Children Davis/Gilstrap Client Trust" account can be made at any branch of Umpqua Bank. Funds will be used to assist the appointed guardian of the Beckett children, three of whom attend Briscoe Elementary School in Ashland and one who is a toddler. Attorneys have yet to determine the extent of any life insurance the Becketts may have had, said Chris Hearn, an Ashland councilman and attorney with the law firm handling the fund. The Becketts and Dean Ray Beckett Sr., of Macdoel, Calif., were killed when their twin-engine Beech 58 Baron crashed into a mountainside about a mile northeast of Pilot Rock. The plane, piloted by Beckett Sr., took off from the Ashland airport around 7:30 a.m. Minutes later, the plane went down in a forested area of the cloud-shrouded Siskiyou Mountains. They died instantly, authorities said. Beckett Sr. left the airport without filing an instrument flight plan but was an experienced pilot used to flying in bad weather, Federal Aviation Administration officials said. Cloudy conditions and tricky air currents at the Siskiyou crest could have contributed to the crash, pilots and FAA authorities said. The Becketts were headed to the family's Siskiyou County Christmas tree farm in Macdoel and then to Scottsdale, Ariz., on business. FAA and National Transportation Safety Board investigators plan to move parts of the plane from the crash site to an FAA hanger for further study. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.